Agricultural News

Net Export Value of U.S. Beef Trade Posts Record High in 2011

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:39:45 CST

The combined dollar value of all U.S. cattle, beef and beef product exports posted a record high in 2011, according to the Livestock Information Marketing Center.

Jim Robb, the executive director of the LMIC says when we look at beef exports it’s easy to forget the contribution made to increased cattle prices by hides, variety meats, tallow and greases. He said the value from those projects was record-setting in 2011. The export value of those products added over $2 billion or 20 percent in 2011. Robb said that is the major reason why we’ve seen record high cattle prices.

The net value of exports of all beef products minus the value of all beef product imports had been rather flat, Robb said, but, “it’s been positive for each of the last two or three years following the BSE years which were very negative in the export context.

“And the year-to-year increase in net export value was over $1.8 billion. That’s new money, essentially, into the beef industry from these export markets. That 1.8 billion is a very large amount if we do that calculation on a per-head basis. This is really the major supportive factor, if we look at all the factors in the beef industry in 2011, that caused cattle prices to be where they were.”

Robb said there is every reason to believe 2012 will continue the upward trend in beef product exports and support higher prices across the market.

“Prices are generally on a higher plain. We mostly export high-value items. In terms of value we expect the value of U.S. beef exports to gain in 2012 and feeder cattle imports probably won’t be much larger than they were. In fact if it rains in northern Mexico, they’ll see reduced feeder cattle imports by the U.S. We think the net value in 2012 will continue to gain.

“These are billions of dollars of gain in recent years and that is a substantial economic impact and does come back to cattle prices.”

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